The Dark Moon

For my Mum.

People are always talking about the need for strong heroines in books and movies, but I was lucky enough to witness a strong woman every day of my life as a child.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be as strong (and stubborn!) as you, but some days, the hard days, when I wish I could be a little tougher, I still tell myself when I grow up, I’m going to be more like my mum.

Love you always.

Chapter One

Kira Sasaki wasn’t sure she wanted to know what he was up to now. Because when it came to Rian Sherron, the captain of the Imojenna, often a person was better off pretending like she hadn’t seen anything.

She came to a halt at the bottom of the ship’s ramp, making way for the aforementioned Rian and his apparently-not-a-pirate cousin, Qaelan Forster. The two of them were dragging an unconscious soldier they’d seemingly removed from the Swift Brion, the flagship where the Imojenna was currently docked.

Considering all she’d seen in her years onboard as the ship’s doctor, this latest of her captain’s escapades didn’t particularly surprise her. She wheeled the case she’d been lugging just inside the atmospheric doors as the trio passed her, Rian not bothering to ask what she’d acquired from the Swift Brion’s extensive and state-of-the-art medical deck. It’d been a rare treat getting to view the facilities and grabbing a few supplies she hadn’t seen in years. Though she made do with what they could source in the outer systems, she couldn’t deny there’d been more than one day when she’d wished she could go supply-gathering somewhere that didn’t consider second-rate disposable gauze a marvel of modern medicine.

Abandoning her goodies, she tagged along after Rian and Qae as they headed across the cargo bay and hauled the soldier deeper into the ship toward the engines, instead of heading up to her medbay as she’d assumed.

By the time she caught up with them, they were dumping the soldier in Rian’s makeshift brig. The man wore the dark blue military uniform of the Swift Brion’s crew, the shirt stretched taut across his broad shoulders and defined biceps. His light brown hair was chopped short but thickly spiked on top, and as his head lolled to the side, she got a good look at the square, masculine angles of his face. Well, he was a handsome one, no doubt about that.

What’s wrong with him? She moved to just inside the cell door, putting aside her superficial assessment and casting a critical doctor’s eye over the groaning man.

Rian stepped back, while Qae made a big show of stretching his shoulders, muttering about how heavy the guy had been.

He and the new Reidar stunner didn’t get along, Rian answered.

It bitch-slapped him like a two-credit shag. Qae had one hand resting on the stunner in his belt. If mine wasn’t out of ammo, I’d be mighty agreeable to hit him with it again.

Her attention cut to the soldier’s face, but he looked completely human. There was no hint of shimmery scales in his flesh nor the typical flatness over the forehead and bridge of the nose that the Reidar possessed in their true form. If the stunner had worked, she’d have seen evidence of a shape-shifting alien beneath his attractive form.

Is he—?

Reidar? Rian crossed his arms, staring down at the man with cold detachment. I don’t know. Maybe. We don’t know enough about how the stunner works yet to say either way. He could be an alien that’s somehow resisting the change where others haven’t been able to. Until I work out otherwise, everyone should consider him dangerous and keep their distance.

She nodded, though the doctor side of her brain had already taken over, cataloguing his condition: pale, clammy, tension in his body as if maybe he was in pain. And semiconscious—not with it, but mumbling and groaning as if he was having a bad dream or hallucinations.

She’d pulled the small palm-sized medical scanner out of her pocket automatically before her mind had even registered the decision.

Before we leave him— She stepped over and knelt down, holding the scanner above his chest and watching the readings scroll across the screen. His blood pressure is a little on the low side.

Fascinating. Rian’s tone told her exactly the opposite. He’s still breathing, so I’d call that good for him right now.

I don’t like the idea of someone being down here in the brig under questionable health. She gently grasped the soldier’s chin, tilting his head toward her. Maybe it was a coincidence, but he seemed to settle somewhat at the contact. At least she wasn’t losing her touch out here in the barrens of space.

She gently lifted his eyelids, and with a startled half breath, found his eyes were an astonishing light blue, almost silver. She’d never seen that exact shade of blue before. It was utterly gorgeous. But she pushed the thought aside, noting that his pupils were reactive but a little sluggish.

"Since there’s a chance he’s not a someone, but an alien, don’t make it your concern, Kira. When he wakes up, he just needs to answer a few questions and this can all be settled up—if he’s human, I’ll let him go. If not…"

Rian didn’t need to spell out what came after if not. She’d seen the way he’d dealt with the Reidar, and it always ended bloody. Not that the sociopathic parasites didn’t deserve it.

And you think waking up in your brig will put him in a chatty mood? She glanced over her shoulder, a low spike of annoyance cutting through her. Usually she took Rian’s cavalier attitude toward people as it was, but for some reason, it’d started getting on her nerves today.

Not to sound like a walking cliché, but—Qae cocked a hip, patting the Reidar stunner—we have ways of making him talk. The last words were uttered in an extra deep, foreboding voice.

She pushed to her feet, slipped her med scanner back into her pocket, ignoring how her annoyance was swiftly turning into frustration. Let me know how that works out for you.

As she headed for the doorway of the brig, she paused to look up at Rian. You’ll comm me if his condition worsens?

The captain gave a single nod, and it seemed like that was all she’d be getting from him in the way of agreement, which didn’t leave her with much reassurance. The notion that the soldier might be a Reidar left a creeping sensation under her skin, like skittering insects, but her ingrained sense of compassion as a doctor pushed back against the anxiety, especially since, more than anything else in the universe, she hated seeing patients mistreated.

Her gut feelings had always gotten her a long way as a doctor, so she never ignored them. Something was up with this guy—not that she necessarily thought he was Reidar. As Rian had said, they hardly knew anything about the experimental energy weapon that revealed the alien’s true form. What if he wasn’t Reidar, but human, and for an unknown reason the stunner had seriously affected him in some way it hadn’t done to anyone else so far?

If she hadn’t heard anything by the following morning, she’d sneak back down for another check. Rian might want everyone to leave the soldier alone, but he surely knew her well enough by now to realize she wouldn’t sit idly by in her medbay while there was a clearly unwell person within the bulkheads of the Imojenna.

Chapter Two

Hell was an eight-by-eight-foot storage compartment converted into a brig by benefit of the bars in the hatchway instead of a door.

Varean groaned as he rolled onto his back, blinking against the bulkhead lights above him, eyes too sensitive, like his retinas had been burned by staring at a solar eclipse. Time had become a blur since he’d been stunned with that energy weapon, punctuated by periods of lucidness where Sherron’s crew had locked him down, while his dreams had been more like someone else’s memories—too real to be a figment of imagination, but so out of context and confusing he couldn’t make any sense of them. Sometimes he’d gotten completely lost in those dreams, unable to find his way back to reality, battered by a language he didn’t understand and places he’d never been but were familiar in some bone-deep way.

The only anchor had been a voice. The sound of it like honey soothing bitter acid.

The voice tugged at his consciousness and led him out of the dark. Her tone hadn’t been wary and belligerent like the others, but steadfast and practical. And for some weird reason, the cadence of it had rippled through him like warm water. Except the few times he’d been conscious, had been able to crack his eyes open or with-it enough to sit himself up, he hadn’t found a face to match the voice, and he put it down to one of the dreams he’d confused with reality. Probably a good thing too, ’cause someone with a voice like that probably had the power to get whatever she wanted in life.

Yeah, it was kind of hard to keep track of reality when that bastard marauder, Qaelan Forster, had made shooting him with the energy weapon his new favorite pastime, keeping him immobile and out of it like a junkie on a bender. The damn thing was like getting jacked by a thousand volts of electricity. It locked up all his muscles, leaving him rigid with rippling pain that just kept on coming, growing in waves, beginning from deep inside him and expanding outward like a tide of shattered glass shredding his insides to a pulp. The agony had taken over, become his only reality, melting and reshaping his cells until there was nothing left of him except a mass of inexorable torment, fighting the crushing darkness.

Varean half rolled and forced himself to sit up, leaving his head throbbing. It’d been a few hours since they’d last hit him with the stunner and, while he still felt like he’d been used as a landing pad for a battle cruiser, his mind was clearing a little. Enough that a good dose of pissed-off was feeding life to his muscles and limbs.

But something within him wasn’t right, like a piece of himself had been knocked out of place. Or maybe that wasn’t the right way to put it. More like something inside him had mutated, giving life to a kind of dark anger and need to lash out he’d never experienced before.

He’d always prided himself on being calm and collected, on remaining levelheaded and acting with logic. Even through the weeks of hell that’d been commando training, he’d kept his shite together. The more they threw at him, the more locked down and in control he’d become. But this—this dark mutation that had bloomed within him, it tempted him toward reckless violence.

His superior officer on the Swift Brion had put in a perfunctory attempt to stand up for him after he’d been stunned, but Sherron and Forster had dragged his half-unconscious carcass in here anyway. So what? He was their prisoner now? Well, he might have a goddamn opinion about that.

Footsteps echoed, and he lifted his head. Light tread, shorter stride, most likely female. He used the bulkhead at his back to steady himself as he pushed upright, his legs giving a good impersonation of undercooked pudding. But he locked his muscles and took a couple of unsteady steps, bringing him into the middle of the cell as a slight figure moved toward him, her features obscured by the shadows and half lighting along the passageway.

Good, you’re awake.

That voice.

A low shudder tumbled through his weak limbs, a chaser of relief like rain on the dry, cracked ground of a desert. It was the voice he’d heard in his dreams, the one that had constantly tugged and teased him back when he thought he was completely lost. His pulse kicked up, giving new energy to his dull, aching limbs.

Varean forced his feet to take him the last remaining steps across the space and braced both hands against the bars. The woman stepped closer, moving into a direct beam of light.

She was short, lucky to top out at five foot five, and a wavy mop of dark hair was haphazardly pinned back from her face of cinnamon-toned skin. When she glanced up at him, his heart jammed into his ribs as the light caught her unusual sage green eyes—made even more exotic by the wide, angular set of her thick lashes.

When I came to check on you last night, you were totally out of it, so you probably don’t remember, she continued, as though there wasn’t a row of bars separating them and he wasn’t being held here against his will. The new mutation within him stirred, mocking him with the idea of throwing himself against the bars in a rage like a wounded animal. He shook his head, dispelling the unsettling notion.

But he couldn’t quell the low burn of anger starting up in his chest and spreading outward. Yep, he’d just run out of patience where this situation was concerned. He wrapped his hands around the bars and shoved at the door, making it clatter. Let me out of here.

A flash of annoyance crossed her features as she folded her arms but didn’t step back from him. I’m a doctor. I’m here only to check on you. I can’t let you out, but I can make sure you’re treated well.

Treated well? He gave a harsh laugh and rattled his cage again. Where were you yesterday?

Her posture tightened as her expression took on an affronted edge. You want out? Then give them what they want.

Frustration poured through him, and his fists contracted around the bars. What do they want?

There didn’t seem like much point asking the question when he could already guess the answer.

Rian wants to work out why the energy weapon affects you. He wants to make sure you’re not Reidar.

Though he’d been expecting it, her words still landed in his guts, effective as a punch. He could guess why the energy weapon had knocked him on his ass—and it wasn’t because he was a damned shape-shifting alien. Every man had his secrets, it was just that his went deeper than most. He’d worked hard to put his past behind him and build a life free of his heritage. It wasn’t the kind of thing he liked people to find out. So no, he wouldn’t be giving Captain Rian Sherron War Hero shite about anything.

Thwarted aggravation gave strength to his legs and sent him pacing across the small space. When he came to the far bulkhead, he slammed the heel of his palm against the wall he’d woken up to earlier. Words on his lips he couldn’t understand kept welling from somewhere unknown.

I’m not one of those damned things. And what if I don’t cooperate? Are Sherron and that pirate Forster going to keep me here against my will? Forcibly remove me from my post?

The doctor didn’t answer him, and he turned to face her. She was studying him, of that he had no doubt. He could all but see her dissecting him.

He crossed his arms and sent her a cutting grin. You keep looking at me like that, Doc, and I’m going to start getting all the wrong ideas.

She tilted her head a little, gaze blatantly shifting down his body, considering, as if she were entertained by his taunt instead of intimidated like he’d intended. But then, maybe he’d imagined it, because by the time her attention came back to his face, she seemed nothing but detached. I was planning on taking your vitals. They were a bit on the low side last night. But I’m going to assume that opening the door at this point wouldn’t be a good idea.

The anger returned, harder and hotter this time, propelling him back across the short space of the brig to the bars. Sure, if you want me to snap that pretty neck of yours. Because you and the rest of your friends aren’t getting anywhere near me. Go tell Forster he can come down here and shoot me with that stunner until my brain turns to goo because I have nothing to tell you, and I refuse to spend another rotation locked up like a damned animal.

From the expression that crossed her face, it seemed she didn’t like his ultimatum. She stepped closer to the bars, either unaware or uncaring that she’d put herself within reach.

If you’re not Reidar, then why does the stunner affect you?

Aggravation pounded him, burning through his stressed muscles. Was this some different interrogation tactic? Send a pretty face in here to soften him up? Did they really think he was that much of a moron? He was an AF-one commando, for jezus sake. Resisting torture one-oh-one was a basic requirement soldiers had to pass, or they got booted from the training unit like trash on garbage day.

This is the last time I am having this conversation with anyone. So go tell that to whoever sent you down here. I don’t know a thing about frecking shape-shifting aliens, and I don’t know why in the hell that stunner knocks me sideways. You’re a doctor, you figure it out.

A kindling flare of interest sparked in her gaze as she stared at him, leaving some kind of weird ripple chasing beneath his skin.

If you’re telling the truth, if this has been some unfortunate twist of fate, then I would like to help you. But you have to be straight with us. Rian has a short temper. Right now he’s curious with a side of suspicious. If you don’t cooperate, he’s going to start getting suspicious with a side of pissed off, and then you’re really going to be in trouble.

Cooperating with Sherron means cooperating with Qaelan Forster. And considering the number of times he’s pulsed me with that damned stunner, I definitely owe him a punch or five in the face.

A hint of anger touched her features, but not directed at him, more like she’d been unhappy with Forster’s antics herself. And I’m sorry for that. But if you don’t fight Rian on this and tell him what you know, I can make sure no one shoots you with that gun again.

A low swirl of relief cut through the heat of his anger, loosening some tension within him. Maybe if he could get the doctor on side, she’d help him escape. Or maybe if he lulled her into a false sense of security, she’d agree to take his vitals, and when she opened the cell door… Well, either way, he was using her to get out of here.

A muted roar vibrated to life on both sides of him, making everything jump into a low rattle. He glanced around before looking back at the doctor.

What’s going on? He raised his voice a little to make sure she heard him over the mechanical growling.

"We’re disembarking from the Swift Brion."

Oh hell no. He was not leaving the Swift Brion, and he sure as dick wasn’t going anywhere on this damn ship.

Listen, Doc. I understand your people are a little wary of me, but can’t you just leave me to my own? Let me be locked up in detention level on my ship until someone figures it out, but I’m not leaving my post—

She shook her head and crossed her arms, glancing over her shoulder. "Sorry, it’s too late. The Swift Brion’s crew were clearing the deck, getting ready to close the atmospheric doors and open the outer hatch when I came down here. The engine vibrations revved higher, and she gave a short grimace. Sorry about the noise, too. You’re right in between the engines down here. It might also get a little warm."

Frecking great. How warm?

She shrugged one shoulder. Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never spent any time down here.

The doc went to step back, but he shot a hand out and clamped his fingers around her upper arm. Not so fast.

She stilled beneath his grip and raised her eyes to meet his. For a long second they stared at each other, almost like enemies weighing up the advantage, but there was something far more dynamic and incandescent beneath the surface.

You might want to think about removing your hand from me.

So the petite doctor had a pair, which for some reason he found way too intriguing. On first impression, he’d never have picked that, but of course, she worked for Major Captain Sherron, and he probably wasn’t the type of guy to surround himself with wilting violets, or however the saying went.

"And you might want to think about opening this door before the Imojenna breaks dock."

Her expression hardened. I told you, it’s too late. Let me go.

He yanked her up against the door and grabbed her other arm, leaning in closer so that only the bars separated their faces. Look at that, now I’ve got two hands on you. Open the door, before I start breaking bones.

He squeezed her right bicep just to make sure she knew he meant business. Really, he couldn’t have hurt the woman—not with the way her voice was doing a number on his central nervous system and the way her green eyes were making his blood rush, heating him up in all the wrong places—but desperate times and all that shite. He had to get off this ship. There were things about him that he needed to keep to himself. Because if they got out, his life as he knew it would never be the same, wouldn’t be his own any longer.

She stared at him; a spark of something in her gaze, he told himself, was all in his recently scrambled mind. "Is this really how you want things to go down? Because I’m telling you, if you leave the Imojenna now, you’ll be vacuumed."

I’ll take my chances.

She huffed a short sigh. Fine. I’ll need at least one arm to release the door controls.

This time it was his turn to stare hard at her for a long moment. That had kind of been too easy. Did she have some ulterior motive? A weapon hidden somewhere she’d go for as soon as he let her go?

How about a compromise?

Her brow lowered over an impatient look. What kind of compromise?

I’m not prepared to let you go, in case you’ve got a weapon stashed somewhere in that petite package of yours. Instead, we’re going to tango.

Her expression morphed into skeptical confusion. Tango?

He pulled both her arms through the bars into his side of the cage. I’m going to let you go one arm at a time, and you’re going to keep them stretched out like this, until I’ve shifted sideways and reached around the next bar. Then we’re going to move your arms out and around, one at a time.

Aren’t you in a hurry or something? This seems kind of excessive.

Sure, I’m in a hurry, but I also don’t plan on giving you a chance to shoot me. He let her bicep go and shifted to the side a little, reaching out and around to guide her arms around the bars.

Her body tensed beneath his touch. I’m a doctor. I don’t carry a gun. I aim to help people, not hurt them.

He glanced up at her as he shuffled sideways again to repeat his action. Not even one of those stunner weapons?

Her jaw clenched. Not even one of those.

They were almost at the edge of the door, near the control pad. Well, I’d love to take your word for it, but I’m just not the trusting type. I’ll check for myself when I’m out of this cage.

Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn’t answer him as they ran out of bars to dance around.

Now, I’m going to keep a hold of your upper arm while you access the control screen, and you’re going to keep your other arm stretched out just like this. If I see any funny business—

Yeah, yeah, you’ll break some bones. Got it, she muttered darkly. Her gaze cut away from his as she slowly reached down and placed her hand on the screen.

Varean took the unguarded moment to study her profile. Funny, but she didn’t seem the least bit afraid of him. She seemed more inconvenienced than frightened. She didn’t even seem that intimidated by his threat to break her arm. Yeah, the doc was definitely intriguing. If only he hadn’t met her on the wrong side of some bars feeling like he was coming off a hangover from being drunk on old-fashioned rocket fuel.

The locking mechanism clicked free, and the door swung loose between them. Varean pushed the doc back a few steps, keeping a hold on her until they’d created a wide enough gap for him to slip through. As he stepped sideways through it, he changed his grip on her fast so she didn’t try to make a run for it.

"I did what you ordered. If you want to get off the Imojenna before she leaves the Swift Brion—if we haven’t already—you better hurry."

Varean hauled her closer, sending a quick glance along the corridor to make sure no one was coming.

And give you the chance to shoot me in the back? No thanks. He patted one hand over all the places people usually stashed weapons. Like she’d promised, he came up empty-handed. How would you like to get acquainted with zero atmosphere? It hurts like a bitch’s mother, but we can last for about thirty seconds before we lose consciousness and melt from the inside out.

If you want to be technical about it, dying in space is really like boiling and freezing at the same time.

He glanced at her as he started towing her along the short passageway, looking for any kind of expression from her to work out if she’d meant that seriously or was actually making a morbid joke. But she simply stared back at him blankly, giving nothing away.

"Right, so we’re going to do that between leaving the Imojenna and getting through the atmospheric doors on the Swift Brion, depending on how far open the outer hatch is."

Aren’t you worried about getting sucked out of the ship if the air is already venting? She didn’t sound concerned, more curious.

Then I’ll die in space. At least I won’t be locked in a cage.

Uh-huh. Wow, I’d heard AF commandos were crazy dedicated to their duty, but I thought it was just an expression. I didn’t realize the crazy part was literal.

They came out in the back of the cargo hold, and Varean glanced down as he tugged her beside him. Hell, was she actually mocking him?

Kira?

The voice coming from the other side of the cargo hold sent Varean into full alert. He yanked the doctor in front of him and spun them toward the source of the sound.

Another woman and a man sat around a low crate, both with expressions of curiosity and concern on their faces. The guy had started to half stand, hand sliding toward his lower back.

Kira, what’s going on? the woman asked. Did Rian give you permission to let him out of the brig?

Varean leaned down until his mouth was a few inches from the doctor’s ear, the next breath he took laced with the sweet scent of her hair. You knew they were out here, huh?

Yep. And she didn’t sound the least bit apologetic about it, either. But she shifted subtly in his hold, so maybe she wasn’t as cool and calm as she seemed.

Varean straightened, keeping an eye on the guy slowly but surely going for a weapon. "He has a name. And he is an AF-one commando who isn’t going to be forcibly removed from his duty."

"Command Donnelly thinks he can still make it back onto the Swift Brion. He’s all ready to take on zero atmosphere, the doc explained, using the general title of Command" people gave to commandos when they were unsure of their rank. And he didn’t fail to miss the hint of dry humor in her tone.

So she thought this was some big joke? His whole life had been sucked into a nebula vortex and the woman thought there was something funny in that? He tightened his hold on her.

And I’m taking the doc here for insurance. Whatever weapon you’re thinking about laying hands on, buddy, I’d think again.

The man stilled.

It’s okay, Tannin. I don’t think Command Donnelly wants to hurt us. He’s just a bit annoyed about being locked up and wants to get back on familiar ground. The doc’s voice was soothing and gentle. All kinds of patronizing, really. He tugged her closer until her back was flush against his chest and let go of her arm to wrap a hand around her slender neck instead. Though his adrenaline was pumping, with the doc’s slight frame against him, an underlying calmness spread through him, the feel of her pressed in to him a little too enjoyable considering his circumstances.

Someone get to opening the hatchway.

Tannin shook his head. "Sorry, buddy, it’s too late. We’ve disembarked from the Swift Brion. So how about you make your way back to the brig and save us all a lot of trouble?"

A low, creeping dread skittled under his skin, the temptation of reckless aggression uncharacteristically rising within him again. But he set his other hand on the doc’s stomach, pressing her more firmly against him, and clamped down on the sensation before it could get a hold of him.

I’m not going back into that cage. You’ll have to put me down first.

The captain will happily take care of that for you, the guy muttered.

Tannin. The other woman’s voice held a note of warning.

What, Zahli? Don’t sit there and pretend like Rian hasn’t been on edge lately, and I’m talking the knife’s edge. One slip and someone is going to end up bloody.

Oh, so things weren’t all confetti parades and shiny medals for the ex–war hero? Well, Varean could honestly say he didn’t give a shite what kind of privileged problems Major Captain Sherron had, so long as they didn’t interfere with him getting off the man’s ship. And if they truly weren’t docked on the Swift Brion any longer, he had to find another means of escape.

Does this ship have emergency pods or some kind of evacuation craft?

The doc glanced over her shoulder at him as far as his grip on her neck would allow. She still didn’t seem overly concerned, but he could see a definite gleam of antagonism in her sage green eyes, feel the tension in the line of her body against his.

There are two skimmer shuttles located on the top of the ship.

Seriously, Kira? Tannin muttered.

She shrugged, her shoulders brushing his pecs, leaving him too aware of all the places she was pressed against him. Well, he asked. And anyway, he can’t get to them without going past Rian.

Okay, this whole thing was verging on stupid. And stupid had a tendency to make him cranky. First, the doc hadn’t seemed the least bit afraid of him since he’d grabbed her at the cell. And now, despite being a little wary, none of these people seemed to be taking seriously his plan of escaping and taking himself a guarantee in the form of the doc. For jezus sake, he knew over thirty ways to kill a person with his bare hands alone. If he wanted to take the lethal way out of this situation, the doc could be dead, and he’d have fingers on whatever weapon Tannin had stashed before her body even hit the deck.

Instead, he was trying his damndest to be polite…well, as polite as a man could be when he had his hand wrapped around someone’s neck. None of these people were directly responsible for his imprisonment, so they didn’t deserve to get hurt. But if he ran across Rian or that bastard Qaelan Forster, who were the accountable parties, he might have words that needed speaking, which would likely be punctuated with a lot of violence.

I’ll take my chances on avoiding Captain War Hero. Where’s the access hatch to the skimmers?

You really don’t want to do that— the doc started in a low voice.

No, what I really don’t want to do is stay on this ship. So, point the way to our escape shuttle, Doc.

What is he doing out of the brig?

A new voice joined the conversation, and Varean glanced over to the metal stairs, where Sherron stood on the second-to-last step. While he didn’t look particularly annoyed, he also didn’t look any kinds of welcoming. Just stone-cold and lethal. Despite the impassive stare, Sherron had both hands relaxed on the butts of his holstered guns. And he’d seen what a freakishly fast draw the guy was. No doubt about it, this was the only warning he was likely to get that Sherron was thinking about shooting